APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Bank is considering a $200m loan to Uzbekistan for the construction of a railway in the east of the country, media report. China has already agreed various loans for the Angren-Pap railway that will link the eastern Ferghana Valley area with the rest of Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek authorities have increased the price of utilities by roughly 10%, media reported. For most of last year, reports from Uzbekistan have documented price rises and inflationary pressures. These have been frustrating parts of Uzbekistan’s population.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Central Bank ordered commercial banks to stop taking wire transfers from Russia’s Zolotaya Korona, threatening the country’s remittances lifeline.
Remittances are crucial to Uzbekistan. According to the World Bank, remittances from Russia account for roughly 16% of Uzbekistan’s GDP.
This figure, although, large still underplays the importance of remittances to the Uzbek economy.
They are an essential lifeblood to the much of the population, feeding entire families and beating away poverty.
It makes the unexplained announcement by the Uzbek Central Bank all the more puzzling. Zolotaya Korona, which means Golden Crown, is the most popular system for Uzbeks working in Russia to wire cash home.
Forcing users onto another system, creates an additional barrier.
A couple of days after issuing the ban, the Uzbek Central Bank said it banned Zolotaya Korona because it thought that it was in poor financial health.
Officials at Zolotaya Korona, which is based in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, have declined to comment on the Uzbek Central Bank’s decision.
In January, around a dozen Azerbaijani banks cut their links to Zolotaya Korona. They said that deals with the Russian company just weren’t profitable enough.
In 2012, Armenia’s Central Bank banned Zolotaya Korona from operating there because it was stopping some people using its services.
Whatever the reason for the Uzbek Central Bank’s sudden ban on Zolotaya Korona, the poor in Uzbekistan will suffer.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan plans to spend $1b modernising its irrigation systems over the next five years, the state-linked UzDaily website reported. Uzbekistan’s Soviet-era water systems needs updating. Uzbekistan government’s is keen on delivering eye-catching initiatives, although their effectiveness is questionable.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, reportedly managed to send a letter to the BBC alleging that she has been held under house arrest for the past five weeks.
If true, the email will confirm rumours that she has been held in her Tashkent apartment since a raid last month. Police reportedly also detained three of Ms Karimova’s close friends and business associates during the raid.
In the email Ms Karimova described how she has been beaten.
“I am under severe psychological pressure, I have been beaten, you can count bruises on my arms,” she wrote, according to the BBC.
Ms Karimova had been discussed as a successor to her father but over the past year her power and influence has, waned. She has lost various businesses in Uzbekistan to rivals and is now under investigation by the authorities in Switzerland for corruption and money laundering.
Ms Karimova is normally active on twitter but since the raid on her home in Tashkent in mid-February, her account has been quiet. This has fuelled speculation that she is under arrest.
The BBC said that they couldn’t confirm 100% that the letter was genuine. They did quote a hand-writing expert, though, saying that she thought there was high probability that the letter was written by Ms Karimova.
Most Uzbeks strongly dislike Ms Karimova who has promoted herself as an international fashion designer and pop singer. Even so, in the letter to the BBC she tried to project herself as a woman of the people defending them against corruption.
“The reason for this Pinochet-style persecution is that I dared to speak up about things that millions are quiet about,” she wrote of her house arrest in a reference to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — UzMobile, the new mobile operator in Uzbekistan run by Uzbektelecom, will be exempt from paying licence fees for five years, local media reported quoting the government. The Uzbek government is keen to set up its own mobile company after foreign companies working in the sector ran into various regulatory problems.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government aims to stop cash leaving the country by forcing local companies to get written permission from the Central Bank before opening foreign bank accounts, media reported. Foreign companies have long complained that repatriating profits is a major problem for businesses in Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek foreign minister Abdulaziz Kamilov flew to Brussels to attend a meeting with his EU counterparts. The trip was relatively controversial because of Uzbekistan’s poor human rights record. Uzbek President Islam Karimov cancelled a trip to Prague earlier this year because none of the minister would meet him.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian energy company Lukoil invested $660m in gas projects in Uzbekistan last year, media reported quoting a company press release. This is a 38% increase in Lukoil’s investment in 2012 and underlines just how important Russian investment is for Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s parliament voted to tinker with the country’s constitution and pass some of the president’s powers to the PM. President Islam Karimov first suggested the changes in December last year. It may be that he has been forced to reduce his powers by his increasingly powerful rivals in the security services.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
